This weekend (I feel like I start every post this way because I do nothing interesting during the week and all my fun goes down after 5 PM on Friday), I went back to the house in Vermont. The house in Vermont that I last visited with 21. The house that has been in my family for years.

This house is more than special to me. My grandpa and my uncles built this house. I’ve been going up to this house since before I can even remember. We’ve had so many weekends at the house. So many vacations. Summer, winter, spring – doesn’t matter. We’ve been there. I’ve watched the house grow from a tiny little cabin that we could all just barely fit into with one room upstairs filled with bunk beds to a house with a basement. It now has 4 bedrooms and a loft. There’s two bathrooms (THANK GOD) and a huge kitchen. The house is meant for us to be there. It’s meant for fun. You hang out there and play Trouble and Sorry all day long. You sit on the deck and drink coffee in the mornings. You stand upstairs in the giant picture window and just take it all in.

Every time I’m there, memories of my grandpa come back. He built the house. It’s a memorial to him in a way.

I’ve always been selective about who I bring up to the house. I’ve brought up some of my friends (Karen, you’re next), but only my close ones. I spent a wonderful weekend there with my Alfred girls and their mens. The people that I’ve brought are the ones that I want to share this place with. It’s beyond words. The second we start driving up the driveway, I feel different. I feel like it’s all good as long as I’m there.

So I brought 21 there. He was (at the time) important to me and the house always is important to me. I figured I should let him in on what I consider to be the best place I’ve ever been. I took him to the local diner we love. I drove him around Castleton. We laughed at all the books on the shelves. We slept in my favorite room in the house.

Then he had to go and decide to not date me anymore. Because that’s how he wanted to be. He left me crying in the driveway. Since then, I don’t cry about him anymore. I really barely even think about him. But that was before this weekend. That was until I saw the last entry in the guestbook was 21 thanking my family for letting us use the house and saying that he hoped he could come up again sometime. I then struggled with where I should sleep that night. Did I sleep in my favorite room because it’s MY favorite room? Or do I sleep somewhere else, so I don’t get upset that the last time I was in that bed was with 21?

I slept in my bed in my favorite room. I tried not to think of him. I woke up the next morning and went to the diner with my family. I tried not to think of him. Every little stupid moment that brought 21 back to me, I tried to ignore. It was hard. It was difficult to ignore how I felt. I’ve always associated that house with good feelings. But to go back and feel like crying because of it all? That was unfair.

But after all that, I realized something. I’m not bringing just any boy to that house anymore. It’s just too special to me. The house, the room, the nonsense shit on the walls – all of it means too much to me to share with anyone I’m not totally crazy for. I know that now. And while I wish I could take back our visit to the HPL, I can’t. I’m kicking myself for bringing 21 up there in the first place, but how was I to know what would happen less than 2 weeks later? I’ve learned now. I know. 21 has now ruined it for every other guy that I will date. Until I know that the guy I’m bring up there is just as crazy for me as I am for him? He’s not invited. It’s girls only at the HPL.

*hugs* sucks he ruined indirectly ruined your weekend. i’ve been in that wanting to share place, and i’ve also been trampled. it’s definitely hard to recover. i hope your next trip is full of the usual HPL magic and amazingness 🙂